From across the street Vos peers through the spitting rain as the congregation begins to file in through the great wooden door. He has been standing here for thirty minutes, watching the great and the good of the Tyneside underworld arriving with their tarty wives and bullet-headed minders. How they’ve loved every minute of the exposure, these two-bit villains, pretending it’s the mid-sixties all over again, or what they’ve been led to believe the mid-sixties were like. The solemn handshakes on the steps. The fraternal embraces. The bullshit platitudes about what a great guy the dead man was. All that is missing is the glass-sided hearse, drawn by a couple of plumed horses, containing the pearlescent casket, and Jack Peel’s name spelled out in flowers.
But then this is the memorial service, not the funeral. They have come to celebrate Peel’s life, but the man himself has been dead for nearly a month.
Presently a dark saloon pulls up and the driver gets out. Dark suit, close-cropped blond hair. Jack’s driver-cum-bodyguard for fifteen years. He opens the rear door and Melody Peel exits, pushing a pair of oversized sunglasses onto the bridge of her nose. In her knee-length fur coat and designer fascinator she looks every inch the gangster’s daughter. She takes a moment to sweep a disdainful glare at the crowd of onlookers who have filled the corner of St Nicholas’s Street and Mosley Street, bringing the rush-hour traffic to a standstill on two of the city’s busiest thoroughfares. Then the driver offers his arm and walks her to the door of the cathedral, where Al Blaylock, the lawyer, is waiting with a solemn expression.
Meanwhile a second car has arrived. This one contains Kimnai Su, Peel’s Thai bride, in a black dress and wide-brimmed hat. This time Blaylock comes forward, taking the tiny woman by the elbow and leading her inside.
Now Vos crosses the street. He is wearing a dark overcoat with the collar turned up and a sober scarf.
‘Friend of the family.’
The heavies at the door have no reason to doubt him and let him past. Vos enters the church and takes a seat on the back row of pews, next to a white-haired man in an expensive camel-hair coat, who explains he has come all the way from northern Cyprus for the occasion.
‘Bloody good turnout,’ he says. And he’s right. There must be two hundred people crammed into the cathedral.
‘It’s what he would have wanted,’ Vos says.
The service lasts forty minutes. There are speeches and eulogies and then ‘Wonderful World’ comes on the speakers as the congregation files back out into the drizzle. If Vos had a pound for every villain who chose Louis Armstrong’s life-affirming ballad to send them off into the next world, he would already be a rich man.
Kimnai Su and Melody are standing at the door accepting the platitudes, the fat lawyer at their side like an obedient pot-bellied pig. Vos keeps at the back of the queue, his head down, until he feels the draught on his face. Then he looks up and his eyes meet theirs the first time since that hot day by the swimming pool.
‘Hello, Mrs Peel,’ he says to Kimnai Su. ‘Lovely service.’
Al Blaylock’s eyes are out on stalks, but Kimnai Su does not flinch. Beside her, Melody regards him quizzically.
‘What’s he doing here, Al?’ she says. ‘What’s the murderer doing here?’
‘I’ll sort it, dear,’ Blaylock says hurriedly. ‘You get yourself back to the car.’ He calls for the driver, who hurries across from the top of the church steps. ‘Take Miss Peel back to the car, will you?’
‘Everything all right, Mr Blaylock?’ the driver says, glaring at Vos.
‘Everything’s just fine. Just take her back to the car.’
At first Melody shakes off the driver’s outstretched arm, then allows herself to be led out of the church.
Throughout the exchange, Kimnai Su has remained her usual impassive self.
‘Thank you for coming, Mr Vos,’ she says deliberately, careful to get her mouth around the unfamiliar English words. ‘We having a reception now. You most welcome attend.’
‘That’s very kind of you,’ Vos says, somewhat taken aback by the invitation. ‘But actually it was Mr Blaylock I came to see.’
‘I’ll see you at the hotel, my dear,’ Blaylock says.
Kimnai Su nods and turns away, leaving Vos and Blaylock alone under the cathedral portico with Satchmo’s rubbly voice echoing on the ancient stone.
‘You’ve got a fucking nerve showing up here,’ Blaylock growls.
‘Believe me, Al, if I had something better to do I’d be doing it.’
‘Aren’t you supposed to be under investigation?’ Blaylock says, moving towards the door. ‘Don’t you think this is a very bad idea?’
‘If I was still under investigation I would agree,’ Vos says. ‘You obviously haven’t had your letter from the IPCC yet.’
Blaylock pauses and flashes Vos a look of pure venom. ‘So what do you want?’
‘I want you to look at this picture, Al.’
From his overcoat he produces a print of the picture attachment emailed by Remmelink. Blaylock makes a show of putting his spectacles on before peering at the grainy photograph.
‘What am I looking at?’ he says.
‘You’re looking at Jack Peel, Okan Gul and a very unpleasant man from Manchester called Wayne Heddon. The picture was taken in a bar in the red-light district of Amsterdam a week before Jack died.’
Blaylock shrugs. ‘I’m none the wiser.’
‘Do I really have to spell it out, Al?’
‘As far as I can see, this is a photograph of three men having a drink in a bar. One of them is Jack Peel. I have no idea who the other two are. Now if you’ll excuse me—’
He makes a move to leave the cathedral portico, but Vos steps in front of him.
‘Let’s talk about the Kaplan Kirmizi from Amsterdam. And the Manchester mob.’
‘I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘I think you do. You see I think Jack was in the middle of setting up a nice little import business with them when he met his unfortunate demise. Okan Gul was a regular at Jack’s club, Al. They were seen together on more than one occasion.’
‘Says who?’
‘Lots of people use the casino,’ Vos says. ‘People see things. Thing is, I can’t imagine Jack would do any sort of business without his lawyer to hold his hand.’
‘You can go to hell.’
They are on the street now. The traffic is moving. The people are going about their business. Blaylock speeds up as he heads to the kerb, his hand extending for a nonexistent taxi.
‘Okan Gul is dead, Al.’
The lawyer stops. His arm lowers fractionally.
‘Somebody tied him to a railway bridge over the East Coast Main Line. The Edinburgh express did the rest.’
A minicab has turned the corner of Mosley Street and is making its way towards the cathedral.
‘Maybe you read about it in the papers,’ Vos says. ‘We just didn’t release the name.’
Blaylock seems visibly shaken. But is that because he didn’t know Okan Gul was dead, or because he didn’t know how he’d died?
‘Who took over as middleman when Jack died, Al? Was it you? Or did they ask you to find another one? After all, most of the villains in this city are clients of yours.’
‘Like I said, you can go to hell.’ Blaylock is trying to look insouciant, but there is fear behind his eyes.
‘Right now I don’t give a shit what dirty little deals Jack was involved in,’ Vos says. ‘What concerns me is when dead Turkish gangsters end up in footballers’ gardens – because I don’t ever think it’s going to end there. So if you know something, I’d really like you to tell me.’
The minicab is approaching. Blaylock sticks out his hand and flags it down.
‘I thought you were walking to the hotel, Al,’ Vos says.
Blaylock gets into the taxi and slams the door behind him. The cab pulls away, and Blaylock stares straight ahead.
TWELVE
Until now Ptolemy has never realized just how much crap people keep in their cars. As well as the usual junk – CDs, umbrellas, phone accessories, notepads – she has unearthed a top set of dentures, a clarinet, the collected works of Franz Kafka, three wraps of cocaine, a box of 800 studded condoms, a wig, and, most disturbing of all, a pair of soiled underpants. Every item has been fastidiously logged, along with the relevant details of the vehicle of origin, and it strikes Ptolemy that, were she a psychologist, the results would make for a fascinating study of human behaviour.